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Nuclear Fusion’s Funding Rush Comes With a Catch

By Leonard Hyman & William Tilles – Apr 27, 2026, https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Nuclear-Fusions-Funding-Rush-Comes-With-a-Catch.html

  • Fusion firms are turning to SPACs for funding, using faster, less restrictive public-market routes to raise the massive capital needed for commercialization.
  • SPACs offer speed but come with heavy downsides, including significant equity dilution, weak investor protections, and high risk—often likened to “junk” equity.
  • Investments remain highly speculative, as fusion companies are still pre-revenue R&D ventures with uncertain technological outcomes despite growing momentum.

As nuclear fusion technologies move towards commercialization, the industry will need hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars of new capital, either from public or private sources, in order to grow. Two nuclear fusion companies have chosen to access the public capital markets via special purpose acquisition corporations. (SPACs).which are often referred to as “blank check companies” because investors give money to a sponsor, typically an investment bank, to find a good business to invest in, without knowing in advance where the money will go.

Before going into specifics, we should explain how a SPAC works. It is an equity vehicle that affords the issuer both advantages and disadvantages over a conventional equity offering via an initial public offering (IPO). There are two principal advantages to SPACs from an issuer’s perspective. They can be offered more quickly than an IPO, and they also do not require pesky financial details like earnings forecasts and cash flow projections. SPACs are a financing vehicle for companies with big ideas, lots of potential, but zero revenues. There are two major downsides to this financial structure, though. First, the sponsor takes a big chunk of the equity as its fee, so there’s a lot of equity dilution right at the outset, like 30%+ dilution. The sponsors typically also receive warrants, which, when exercised, further increase the stock float and exacerbate dilution. And then there’s the phantom equity problem. SPAC investors can demand their money back from the sponsor, typically $10 per share if no investment has been made. However, the outstanding shares are not retired, and this also exacerbates a stock dilution problem.

As if to prove our point, one of the first nuclear fusion companies to form a SPAC, TAE Enterprises, formerly Tri Alpha Energy, did so in a 50-50 merger with the President’s Trump Media and Technology Group, the owner of Truth Social. The CEO of TAE, and Truth Social’s CEO, former congressman Devin Nunes, were to be co-heads of this new venture. Mr. Nunes has been fired. Nevertheless, TAE is a real technological competitor in the nuclear fusion race. Its newest reactor, called Copernicus, uniquely uses hydrogen-boron fuel (versus deuterium-tritium in more conventional systems). The advantage is a great diminution in radioactive waste, but the extreme temperatures needed, 1-5 billion degrees Celsius, pose ignition challenges. TAE previously raised over a billion dollars from Google, Chevron, and others and, like everyone else, expects to have a commercial reactor operating in the early 2030s. TAE’s field-reversed configuration of magnetic confinement loosely resembles a tokamak, but with a much simpler, cheaper architecture.

A second company, General Fusion, announced plans to go public via a SPAC shortly after TAE. Its sponsor, more conventionally, is a Dallas-based investment bank, and its SPAC is called the Spring Valley Acquisition Corporation III (that’s Roman numeral three). Deal number one, by the way, was the SMR company NuScale. That deal is expected to close some time around mid-year, and the company plans to be NASDAQ-listed under the stock ticker GFUZ. General Fusion describes its magnetized target fusion (MTF) technology as a more practical fusion alternative to both tokamak and laser-driven systems. The value of this transaction was expected to be about $1 billion at closing.

Lastly, we want to mention Zap Energy which is developing the so-called “sheared flow stabilized Z-pinch fusion technology” and is often cited as next in line to go public in some form. Zap has raised over $300 million dollars from Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Chevron, Mizuho, Soros Foundation, and others. Zap’s website describes the company as “building a seriously cheap, compact, scalable fusion energy technology with potentially the shortest path to commercially viable fusion and (using) orders of magnitude less capital than traditional approaches.” Zap’s website also teases the competitors with a large headline stating, “No Magnets Needed.

People often ask us whether SPACs are an appropriate investment vehicle for typical retail investors. The short answer is no. The long answer is also no, by the way. And that’s for a simple reason. These SPACs are not businesses in the conventional sense of the term. They are late stage research and development projects looking to establish a technological proof of design or a working prototype. They will consume vast amounts of capital for research with no associated revenues for years. And who knows which of these competing technologies will ultimately prevail in the energy marketplace and which will be discarded as ultimately impractical. In a way, the SPAC financial format, as we suggested earlier, is like a non-investment grade rating, but for equities, which should serve as a warning for potential investors. It’s a high cost, high risk financial structure, but perhaps one not inappropriate to the business of trying to capture the sun in a magnetic bottle as some have labeled the pursuit of nuclear fusion.

May 1, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, technology | Leave a comment

  Satellites launched for coming war on China

Space Development Agency launches first operational satellites

By Courtney Albon, Sep 11, 2025, https://www.defensenews.com/space/2025/09/10/space-development-agency-launches-first-operational-satellites/

The Space Development Agency launched its initial batch of operational satellites on Wednesday, kicking off a 10-month campaign to deliver more than 150 satellites to low Earth orbit.

The 21 satellites, all built by York Space Systems, flew on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The spacecraft are part of SDA’s Transport Layer, designed to provide fast, secure communication capability to military operators.

The launch represents a new phase for SDA, which since 2019 has been crafting plans for a large constellation of government-owned missile tracking and data transport satellites in low Earth orbit. Its first spacecraft, Tranche 0, launched in 2023 and 2024 and have been used to demonstrate capabilities like laser communication between satellites, with the ground and recently between a commercial partner’s satellite and an SDA terminal installed on an aircraft in flight.

Once on orbit, the Tranche 1 satellites launched today will build on that work. Following initial payload health and safety checks, the spacecraft could start providing operational capability to combatant commands and other users within four to six months, according to acting SDA Director Gurpartap Sandhoo.

“This is the first time we’ll be able to start working with our COCOMs, our joint force to start integrating space into their operations and getting the warfighters used to using space from this construct,” Sandhoo told reporters prior to the launch. “This is the first time we’ll have the space layer fully integrated into our warfare operations.”

SDA’s first user group, whom Sandhoo called “early adopters,” includes military operators in the Indo-Pacific. This initial work is key, he added, to familiarize the services and combatant commands with the capability SDA can provide.

“Doing the warfighter immersion is going to be critical because they have to get trained on this and we have to provide this capability,” Sandhoo said. “That’s what Tranche 1 will start doing.”

Tranche 1 will include 154 satellites — 126 for the Transport Layer and 28 for the Tracking Layer. The first 21 spacecraft will bring a limited coverage and capacity, but that will increase over time as more reach orbit.

Starting with today’s launch, SDA plans to fly a new batch of Tranche 1 satellites each month for 10 months, with six of those missions carrying transport spacecraft and four flying missile warning and tracking satellites. The first few launches will be dedicated transport missions, but Sandhoo said tracking satellites will start to fly early next year.

The next mission is slated for mid-October and will feature satellites built by Lockheed Martin.

By the end of Tranche 1, Sandhoo said, SDA hopes to be providing regional capacity. Tranche 2, scheduled to start launching in late 2026, will further expand the constellation’s reach.

The agency is making headway on future missile tracking capabilities beyond Tranche 2 — which could provide essential support for the Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile shield — but the longer-term future of the Transport Layer is uncertain. The effort is fully funded through Tranche Two, but the Space Force has paused work on Tranche 3 amid an ongoing study considering whether the constellation is the best solution to meet the U.S. military’s data transport needs.

Sandhoo said the stalled funding will delay SDA’s plans to expand from regional to global transport coverage.

April 30, 2026 Posted by | space travel, USA | Leave a comment

Space Loos, Lunar Exploitation and Colonial Escapism: The Artemis II Mission

22 April 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/space-loos-lunar-exploitation-and-colonial-escapism-the-artemis-ii-mission/

The Earth is in a fine mess, but human beings sealed in laboratories full of energy and vigour, attached to screens, and running tests about conditions in space, have another reason to cheer. Between April 1 and April 11, the Artemis II undertook a flyby of the Moon and returned safely. News bulletins, life stream feeds and podcasts afforded it saturating room and coverage. This was the first Moon mission with a crew in over five decades. Cue, then, for the grand claims, the exaggerated hopes, the silliness of it all.

Absurdly, the effort is being heralded as a collective push by humanity despite its distinct NASA credentials, yet another instance of coarse patriotism yoking itself to scientific endeavour. This is an American gig, and it will be assessed along with every other expensively patriotic mission launched by any number of States believing that the dark side of the moon is the next big thing in competition and exploitation. President Donald Trump’s Executive Order of December 2025 promises “American space superiority,” with the Artemis Program intended to return “Americans to the Moon by 2028,” “assert American leadership in space, lay the foundations for lunar development, prepare for the journey to Mars, and inspire the next generation of American explorers”.

It is also worth considering the statement by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman made in March: “NASA is committed to achieving the near-impossible once again, to return to the Moon before the end of President Trump’s term, build a Moon base, establish an enduring presence, and do the other things needed to ensure American leadership.” Nothing about humanity here so much as a bald MAGA admission that, “The clock is running in this great-power competition, and success and failure will be measured in months, not years.”

Just to complete the trio of examples, Sean Duffy, when he was acting NASA Administrator, did not shy away from the messianic zeal of the American space program. In an internal staff briefing held last year, he was unambiguous that the US had to get to the Moon before China before venturing on to Mars. This was only natural, as his country had a “manifest destiny to the stars.”

Colonial pursuits are often preceded by the spirit of discovery, economic reconnaissance, inquiry. Then comes the appropriation, the brazen theft, the seizure wrapped in the jolly packaging of blood, civilisation and empire. Thankfully, in this case, there are no indigenous populations to exterminate, no extant human cultures to extinguish. That extermination will take the form of great powers vying over rare mineral real estate as an exercise in colonial escapism.

Much of the mission, because the lay audience could have no sense or truck in the finer details of the travel, was reduced to soap opera banalities and focal points of sheer triviality. In some instances, it was even worse than soap opera, crying out for some definitive, asteroid finish. Prosaic details were offered about lavatory failures, which only matter because people relate to them with faecal and urinary familiarity. “The Artemis II crew, working closely with mission control in Houston,” NASA revealed on April 2, “were able to restore the Orion spacecraft’s toilet to normal operations following the proximity operations demonstration.” That lavatory, at the cost of $23 million, was also said to be the second dearest toilet system ever built. We were also told with quotidian certainty that all lavatories in space tend to end up having failings of some sort, which will no doubt launch a thousand theses on faeces in due, and easy comfort. University examination boards can look forward to the excessive discharge.

Moving items in the spacecraft were also the source of various bromide observations. Nutella, with its hazelnut spread, got what was regarded by the press as the “greatest free advert in history,” floating about fairly unnoticed by the crew – though noticed on the live feed. “When Artemis II broke Apollo 13’s distance record of 248,655 miles from Earth on Monday [April 6],” declared PRWeek, “it was one small step for man … and a giant leap for Nutella’s marketing team.” How wonderful to also note that Nutella was founded in 1964, the same year NASA successfully completed its first lunar mission with Ranger 7.

As for global public interest, NASA and any of those in the business of filming their exploits in space need to be reminded of a rather disturbing truth. Dark, even slightly sadistic voyeurism is never far away from such missions. Impassive spectators are a callous sort, seeking jubilation in shock. An attempt to inject drama is made in media outlets, fluffed up by pundits, about what might have happened to the crew on losing communications for several hours. They must surely make it. Surely. Yet, sickening voyeurism is heavy in such messages, a thanatotic urge. “As the astronauts pass the Moon at about 23:47 BST (18:47 EDT) on Monday, the radio and laser signals that allow the back-and-forth communication between the spacecraft and Earth will be blocked by the Moon itself,” came the bland observation from the BBC. The retching platitude, however, could not be resisted: “For about 40 minutes, the four astronauts will be alone, each with their own thoughts and feelings, travelling through the darkness of space. A profound moment of solitude and silence.” A rather different reading of what being “alone” means, let alone solitude.

On their return to Earth, the press conference given by the crew was saccharine, charmless and unspeakable, suggesting that space travel may narrow the mind. There was the mandatory carpet crawling tribute act for NASA’s management. There were bucketful inanities on team enterprise, the insufferable jargon of organisation teamwork. With emetic conviction, Jeremy Hanson went so far as to call the crew a “joy team” and claim that humans “don’t always do great things. We’re not always in our integrity, but our default is to be good and to be good to one another.” Another crew member suggested that Earth was a “dream boat” (interestingly enough, China’s own spacecraft destined for lunar exploits is named Mengzhou, or Dream Vessel) while the Artemis team were but a mirror for humanity. (Some crew, some mirror.)

Reid Wiseman, along with the rest of the crew, seemed so dazzled as to mischaracterise this proto-colonial endeavour as an effort to unify the fractious human species. “We wanted to go out and try to do something that would bring the world together, to unite the world.” Christina Koch spoke of her husband’s assuring words that she had “made a difference” in transcending divisions. Other competing nation states are unlikely to agree, let alone care for such guff.

Logistically, mechanically, and in terms of engineering, the Artemis II mission can be seen as stunning, startling and impressive, humankind showing yet again an ability to reject nature’s limitations, to foil it, if you will, by going to areas where they have no natural right to be in. In that, we can be impressed. But in everything else, best return to the problems of the Earth, which remain in desperate need of resolution, whatever the wide-eyed space colonists claim.

April 25, 2026 Posted by | space travel | Leave a comment

A Modern Perspective on Nuclear Power Technology – Dr. Gordon Edwards.

24 Apr 2026Hosted by Tanya Novikova of Belarus, this presentation by Dr. Gordon Edwards o April 14, 2026, gives an overview of the nuclear power industry’s efforts to reverse the industry’s steep decline in market share during the last 30 years. The slides can be downloaded at https://www.ccnr.org/GE_Transatlantic… .

April 25, 2026 Posted by | technology | Leave a comment

US-Iran-Israel War Latest News: What is Project Maven? Here’s how Pentagon is using AI to reshape modern warfare amid Iran war, its main purpose is to…

The initiative shows how AI can help militaries process huge amounts of battlefield information and make faster decisions during conflicts.

By : Shivam Verma, Apr 7, 2026

S-Iran-Israel War Latest News: Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming a powerful tool in modern warfare. One of the most talked-about examples is Project Maven, a program launched by the United States Department of Defense. The initiative shows how AI can help militaries process huge amounts of battlefield information and make faster decisions during conflicts.

Originally introduced as a technology experiment, Project Maven has now become one of the most influential defence AI systems used by the US military. Its main purpose is to analyse large volumes of surveillance data and help intelligence analysts identify possible threats much more quickly than traditional methods.

Data overload from modern surveillance

The Pentagon started Project Maven in 2017 to deal with a major problem in modern warfare: the overwhelming amount of data generated by drones and surveillance systems. Military drones and aircraft collect hours of video footage and thousands of images every day…………….

Project Maven uses machine learning and computer vision technology to automatically scan these videos and images. The system identifies objects and patterns that may indicate military targets……………

Tech industry’s role in military AI

Project Maven also shows how closely the defence sector and the technology industry are now connected. In the early stages, major tech companies helped develop the system by providing expertise in machine learning and data analysis.

However, the project also sparked debate within the tech industry. Some employees at large technology companies raised ethical concerns about using artificial intelligence in military operations. Due to internal protests, a few companies decided to step back from the program. https://news24online.com/world/us-iran-war-news-what-is-project-maven-heres-how-pentagon-is-using-ai-to-reshape-modern-warfare-amid-iran-war-its-main-purpose-is-to/796438/

April 22, 2026 Posted by | technology | Leave a comment

Reprocessing isn’t the solution

by Bart Ziegler, April 6, 2026, https://thecoastnews.com/opinion-reprocessing-san-onofres-nuclear-waste-a-risky-bet/

A decades-old conversation about what to do with the nuclear waste at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is now getting the attention it deserves.

Last December, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted to explore sending spent fuel from San Onofre to a national laboratory for reprocessing. Our organization raised concerns at the time. Now, the county’s own staff has reached the same conclusion.


In a March 9, 2026, report, the county found that commercial-scale reprocessing “has historically been cost-prohibitive and presents security concerns related to plutonium separation” and that “deployment timelines remain uncertain and federal policy does not prioritize reprocessing as a near-term solution.” The report concluded that pursuing a reprocessing initiative “may not be a cost-effective or strategically viable project at this time.”

This comes as pressure to embrace reprocessing intensifies. An energy think tank and Oklo — a recycling company that recently announced a $1.68 billion facility in Tennessee — are pressing Congress to rewrite foundational laws governing nuclear energy to promote commercial recycling.

The Department of Energy is soliciting states to host “nuclear lifecycle innovation campuses” encompassing enrichment, fuel fabrication and waste disposal. Of 24 states that expressed interest, officials say 12 to 15 have “very serious proposals.”

The urgency driving these efforts is real. The 3.6 million pounds of spent fuel at San Onofre sit 100 feet from the Pacific Ocean, near a military base, above the water table and near multiple active fault lines. But handing the waste over to loosely regulated startups with unproven technology and limited oversight is equally a recipe for disaster.

Reprocessing advocates call it “recycling,” which sounds beneficial or even harmless, but it carries its own risks. Reprocessing does not eliminate nuclear waste. It transforms solid spent fuel rods into more unstable forms, including liquid radioactive acid, which is harder to contain.

The only commercial reprocessing plant operated in the United States, in West Valley, New York, ran for six years before shutting down and accruing a cleanup bill that may ultimately cost taxpayers more than $5 billion.

The deeper problem is proliferation. Reprocessing separates plutonium — a key component of nuclear weapons — from spent fuel, creating material that is far easier to divert or steal. Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter halted U.S. commercial reprocessing after India used plutonium from its civilian program to build a bomb in 1974.

The National Academies and Department of Energy laboratories have since concluded that newer reprocessing methods do not meaningfully reduce that risk.

This does not mean reprocessing research should be abandoned. But it does mean lawmakers should stop treating commercial reprocessing as an emergency off-ramp for San Onofre and other sites with stranded nuclear waste.

If federal policy is updated, it should prioritize approaches that avoid separated plutonium, favor low-enriched fuel strategies, minimize high-hazard secondary waste streams and meet rigorous safety requirements.

Reprocessing is not a substitute for the federal government’s obligation to deliver a permanent disposal solution, as required by federal law. Rep. Mike Levin, co-chair of the bipartisan Spent Nuclear Fuel Solutions Caucus, warned that treating reprocessing as a near-term fix for San Onofre “distracts from the work that experts agree is unavoidable.”

Instead, if lawmakers are serious about a nuclear renaissance, they should advance bipartisan legislation already under discussion to establish an independent nuclear waste authority that prioritizes removing waste from high-risk, high-population sites like San Onofre.

Bart Ziegler is the president of the Del Mar-based Samuel Lawrence Foundation.

April 21, 2026 Posted by | technology, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear-Powered Rockets — NASA Plans First Launch in 2028

In 2015 Gagnon said: “The nuclear industry views space as a new market for their deadly product. Nuclear generators on space missions, nuclear-powered mining colonies on Mars and other planetary bodies and even nuclear reactors on rockets to Mars are being sought. Thus, there are many opportunities for things to go wrong.”

by Karl H Grossman, April 17, 2026, https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/4/17/800021876/community/nuclear-powered-rockets-nasa-plans-for-launch-in-29/

NASA got through the Artemis II mission last week with a few minor “anomalies,” as NASA calls problems, but in 2028 it plans to launch a nuclear-powered rocket to Mars as an initial step to using nuclear-powered rockets in space.

An accident involving a nuclear-powered rocket could be no small anomaly.

The NASA plan was heralded in a section titled “America underway on nuclear power in space” in a NASA announcement on March 24th headed “NASA Unveils Initiatives to Achieve America’s National Space Policy.”

It said that “after decades of study and in response to the National Space Policy, NASA announced a major step forward in bringing nuclear power and propulsion from the lab to space. NASA will launch the Space Reactor‑1 Freedom, the first nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft, to Mars before the end of 2028, demonstrating advanced nuclear electric propulsion in deep space.”

Scientific American followed with an article the same day headlined: “NASA announces a nuclear-powered Mars mission by 2028.” The subhead: “The U.S. space agency will aim to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars—a first—in a bid to show that nuclear propulsion can be used to send missions into deep space.”

Pursuing use of nuclear propulsion in space has been a NASA aim for many years—indeed, going back to the 1960s.

This was highlighted by NBC News correspondent Tom Costello, who covers space issues, in 2023 going to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama where work has been done and remains underway on developing nuclear rockets.

Costello reported: “NASA looks at going to the moon…and to Mars. And to get to Mars, they’re going nuclear….While science and exploration are the driving motivators, there’s also a competitive factor, China. The Chinese government is very secretive, and a lot of their plans involve their military preparations. And so, there’s a reason for us to get there first. And NASA wants to get there faster…So to cut travel time, America is going back to the future.”

“This project was called NERVA,” Costello continued, citing NERVA (which stands for Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application), “the 1960s a government program that most Americans have never heard of to develop nuclear powered rockets. It turns out they made big progress back in the 60s, running expensive tests.”

In Huntsville, he said, “they’ve got an exact replica to scale of the Saturn V [rocket]…Future astronauts will need that kind of lift. But once they’re in space, they can use a much smaller engine, a nuclear engine, to go all the way to Mars and back…It’s happening now at the Marshall Space Flight Center…This is where they put [together] components of nuclear thermal rockets.”

Things did not go smoothly for NERVA.

“NASA: Lost its NERVA,” was the heading in an article in Ad Astra in 2005 by longtime space journalist Leonard David. He wrote about how, “For NASA, it has been a long time in coming—permission to use the ‘N’ word: for nuclear power in space. In many ways, it has been the political, financial and technological third rail of space exploration—too hot of an issue to handle easily—radioactive to boot.”

He wrote that NERVA’s “success was short-lived. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, U.S. President Richard Nixon nixed NASA and NERVA funding dramatically…Eventually, NERVA lost its funding and the project was scuttled in 1973.

It’s not just the U.S. that is intending to use nuclear-powered rockets in space. “Nuclear-powered rockets will win the new space race,” was the headline last year in The Washington Post. The sub-head: “Russia and China are working hard for a nuclear-powered advantage in space. The U.S. must up its game.

“Space nuclear propulsion and power are not hypotheticals,” said the article. “China is investing heavily in both terrestrial and space-based nuclear technologies, with plans to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars by 2033. Russia, too, has announced ambitious goals.”

The headline in a 2024 article in the South China Morning Post: “Starship rival: Chinese scientists build prototype engine for nuclear-powered spaceship to Mars.” Its subhead told of how a “1.5 megawatt-class…fission reactor passes initial ground tests as global race for space. The lithium-cooled system is designed to expand from a container-sized volume into a structure as large as a 20-story building in space.”

The article began by saying a “a collaboration of more than 10 research institutes and universities across China have made significant strides toward interplanetary travel with the development of a nuclear fission technology.”

 The Russians are bullish on the speed a nuclear-powered rocket could, they believe, attain. “Mars in 30 days? Russia unveils prototype of plasma engine,” was the headline last year of an article put out by World Nuclear News.

It began: “A laboratory protype of a plasma electric rocket engine based on a magnetic plasma accelerator has been produced by Rosatom scientists, who say it could slash travel time to Mars to one or two months.” (Rosatom is the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation.)

The Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space was formed in 1992 at a gathering in Washington, D.C. and now has membership throughout the world. It has organized protests at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to NASA launches of spacecraft using radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Using the heat of plutonium-238, the RTG’s generate electricity to run instruments, not to propel spacecraft.

The largest protest organized by the Global Network involved the Cassini space probe mission to Saturn in 1997 with 73 pounds of plutonium in three RTGs, the largest amount of plutonium ever on a spacecraft.

The most dangerous portion of that mission was when NASA had the Cassini probe perform a “slingshot maneuver,” sending it back towards Earth to use Earth’s gravity to increase its velocity. If, as NASA said in an Environmental Impact Statement for Cassini, there was an “inadvertent reentry” into the Earth’s atmosphere in that maneuver causing it to disintegrate and release its plutonium, an estimated “5 billion billion…of the world population…could receive 99 percent of the radiation exposure.”

NASA insisted at the time that beyond the orbit of Mars, it was necessary to use plutonium-powered RTGs. However, in 2011 NASA launched its Juno space probe to Jupiter which instead of RTGs used three solar arrays to generate onboard electricity. Juno orbited and studied Jupiter, where sunlight is a hundredth of what it is on Earth.

In the U.S., in 2021 a report titled “Space Nuclear Propulsion for Human Mars Exploration” was issued by a committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine of the U.S.

The 104-page report also lays out “synergies” in space nuclear activities between the NASA and the U.S. military. It said: “The report stated: “Space nuclear propulsion and power systems have the potential to provide the United States with military advantages…NASA could benefit programmatically by working with a DoD [Department of Defense] program having national security objectives.”’

What might be an “anomaly” involving a nuclear-powered rocket.

“Is using nuclear materials for space travel dangerous, genius, or a little of both?” was the heading of a 2021 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

With the U.S. setting a goal of “a human mission to Mars,” said the articleby Susan D’Agostino, “the words ‘nuclear’ and ‘space’ are again popping up together….Nuclear propulsion systems for space exploration—should they materialize—are expected to offer significant advantages, including the possibility of sending spacecraft farther, in less time, and more efficiently than traditional chemical propulsion systems.”

“But,” the piece went on, “extreme physical conditions on the launchpad, in space, and during reentry raise questions about risk-mitigation measures, especially when nuclear materials are present. To realize the goal of nuclear-propelled, human mission to Mars, scientists must overcome significant challenges that include—but go beyond—the technical. That is, any discussion about such an uncommon journey must also consider relevant medical, environmental, economic, political, and ethical questions.”

The piece said that “attaching what amounts to a nuclear reactor to a human-occupied spaceship is not without risks.”

An article in 2023 by Bob McDonald of the Canadian Broadcasting System was headed: “Nuclear powered rockets could take us to Mars, but will the public accept them?”

“Nuclear rockets are not a new idea,” it noted. “Now, with the prospect of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s, the idea is being revived in an effort to shorten the roughly seven months it takes a conventional rocket to get to Mars. This might be a boon for future astronauts who face a seven-month, one-way journey using current technology.”

“The idea is to use a small fission reactor to heat up a liquid fuel to very high temperatures, turning it into a hot gas that would shoot out a rocket nozzle at high velocity, providing thrust,” it continued.

“The design of a nuclear rocket means they typically would produce less thrust than a chemical rocket, but nuclear engines could run continuously for weeks, constantly accelerating, ultimately reaching higher velocities in a tortoise-and-hare kind of way. Nuclear propulsion is expected to be twice as fuel-efficient as chemical rockets, largely because they can heat the gas they use for thrust to a higher temperature than chemical combustion, and hotter gas means more energy.”

“A quicker trip to Mars provides huge benefits. Astronauts would be exposed to less cosmic radiation during the journey. The psychological pressures of living in a confined space far from home would be reduced. Supplies and a rescue mission could be delivered more quickly. These rockets could also open up the outer solar system so trips to Jupiter and its large family of icy moons could eventually be within reach,” the piece went on.

“While the technology of nuclear propulsion is certainly feasible, it may not be readily embraced by the public. The accidents at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima have left many people skeptical about nuclear safety. And there will be risk,” said the piece.

“Technicians at the NASA Lewis Research Center in 1964 testing a nozzle design for a nuclear thermal rocket. A nuclear rocket wouldn’t be used to launch a spacecraft from the Earth’s surface — it would be designed to run in space only. It would have to launch into orbit on a large chemical rocket — so the public would have to accept the risk of launching a nuclear reactor on a standard rocket filled with explosive fuel.”

“And rockets have and will malfunction catastrophically, in what with black humor rocket scientists sometimes call RUD—’rapid unscheduled disassembly.’”

“No one wants to see nuclear debris raining down on the Florida coast or Disneyland, and that’s not the only possible scenario. An accident in orbit could potentially drop radioactive material into the atmosphere. These safety concerns need to be addressed before any nuclear rocket leaves the ground,” said the article.

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network since its formation, cites in the past NASA “postponing a test of a nuclear-powered spacecraft just above the Earth. They weren’t allowed to test it on Earth because of its potential for spreading contamination widely, so they intended to test it over our heads. There were concerns about the technology failing, and it falling, burning up on re-entry. At the present time there is no schedule to do those tests, but I’m sure they’re pushing ahead to do them as quickly as possible.”

“Besides the problem of an accident,” said Gagnon, “the production process for nuclear space devices leads to radioactive contamination in the laboratories where they takes place and in air and water.”

In 2015 Gagnon said: “The nuclear industry views space as a new market for their deadly product. Nuclear generators on space missions, nuclear-powered mining colonies on Mars and other planetary bodies and even nuclear reactors on rockets to Mars are being sought. Thus, there are many opportunities for things to go wrong.”

If things go wrong, these “anomalies” could be major.

NASA’s March 24 announcement also said: “When SR-1 Freedom reaches Mars, it will deploy the Skyfall payload of Ingenuity‑class helicopters to continue exploring the Red Planet. SR-1 Freedom will establish flight heritage nuclear hardware, set regulatory and launch precedent, and activate the industrial base for future fission power systems across propulsion, surface, and long‑duration missions. NASA and its U.S. Department of Energy partner will unlock the capabilities required for sustained exploration beyond the Moon and eventual journeys to Mars and the outer solar system.”

April 20, 2026 Posted by | space travel, USA | Leave a comment

Fresh off Artemis, America is now turning its attention to creating nuclear power in space.

The administration wants to launch the reactors to the moon within the next four years – a timeline that critics say could be a problem

Indeoendent, Julia Musto in New York, Tuesday 14 April 2026

The Trump administration is renewing its focus on creating nuclear power in space, releasing updated guidance for federal agencies following the historic Artemis II lunar mission.

The action is aimed at ensuring the U.S. stays ahead of China in the new space race, which will determine which political power creates the rules there in the future, as humans establish a permanent moon base and work toward getting to Mars in a nuclear-powered spacecraft.

Nuclear energy will be necessary to live and work on the moon because there is not unlimited access to solar power and lunar nights are 14.5 Earth days long. Nuclear reactors can be placed in permanently shadowed areas and can generate power continuously, according to NASA.

The administration’s guidance, issued Tuesday, instructs the Departments of Energy and Defense, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and NASA to start taking steps toward safely deploying nuclear reactors in orbit as early as 2028 and launching them to the moon by 2030, in line with a December executive order from President Donald Trump.

“The time has come for America to get underway on nuclear power in space,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, a former SpaceX astronaut, wrote in a post sharing the news on the social media platform X

………………………………. By the next 60 days, it calls for a Department of Energy assessment on the readiness of the nuclear industry to produce “up to four space reactors within five years, including reactor design, delivery of long lead-time components, and fuel allocation or production, along with recommendations for addressing any gaps.”

And the guidance also instructs the OSTP to develop a roadmap that identifies obstacles to achieving these objectives within the next 90 days.

“DOW will, pending availability of funding, pursue deployment of a mission-enabling mid-power in-space reactor by 2031,” the guidance said.

…………………..But some experts say that recent goals for reactors are just not feasible within the allotted timeline – although not everyone agrees.

“The whole proposal is cock-eyed and runs against the sound management of a space program that is now being starved of money,” national security analyst, nuclear expert and author Joseph Cirincione told The Independent last August.

He believes a nuclear reactor on the moon could take up to 20 years to become a reality. https://www.independent.co.uk/space/us-nasa-space-nuclear-power-b2957498.html

April 18, 2026 Posted by | space travel, USA | Leave a comment

As Rocket Launches Increase, They May Be Polluting the Skies

“We’re actually slowing down the repairing of ozone hole with the space industry. Which is quite something.”

Undark, By Ramin Skibba, 04.06.2026

Research suggests that rocket exhaust and debris could be threatening the ozone layer, though uncertainties persist.

Rocket launches used to be a rare occurrence. But with access to space proliferating, partly thanks to an abundance of commercial space companies, global launches have risen exponentially: In the last five years, they’ve nearly tripled. According to an analysis by SpaceNews, in 2025 alone, humans shot about 320 rockets into space.

All those rockets produce a fair amount pollution, from the sooty plumes that catapult them into orbit and beyond to derelict satellites that burn up upon reentry. Regulators have been monitoring and restricting other air pollutants especially since the 1970s, including the exhaust from cars and jet engines. Many researchers believe such regulations are overdue for rocket engines — especially because nobody really knows exactly how much damage those pollutants cause. “It might be another 10 years until we found how large the influences on the atmosphere actually are,” said Leonard Schulz, a geophysicist at the University of Braunschweig – Institute of Technology in Northern Germany. By that time, he added, the pollution could accumulate to the point that, you cannot easily reverse it.

Though space pollution is still small compared to the aviation industry, rocket exhaust may be gradually depleting Earth’s protective ozone layer, which is still recovering from the impacts of pollution from a class of chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons. (CFCs, as they are known, were once commonly used as coolant in refrigerators and air conditioners, among other uses, and were regulated in the late 1980s.) But with limited data and industry transparency, many unknowns and uncertainties persist, including the impacts of next-generation rocket fuels.

Compared to other sources of pollution, the effects of sending rockets into space and from space debris that comes back down from orbit “has been negligible,” said Christopher Maloney, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado who works out of the Chemical Sciences Laboratory at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, with recent research on emissions from rockets and reentries. “But if you follow these trends, what is it going to look like?”

The boost in rocket launches is largely driven by the private sector, and in particular SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets, which are used in part to loft Starlink satellites into orbit. There are now about 10,000 such satellites, which provide internet services to remote regions. Starlink is just one example of a large network of satellites, known as megaconstellations, the deployment of which accounted for some 40 percent of rocket pollution as of 2022. “The proportion of those emissions coming from megaconstellations is growing every year,” said Connor Barker, a research fellow at the University College London who focuses on atmospheric chemical modeling. In January, SpaceX filed an application at the Federal Communications Commission for a megaconstellation of 1 million satellites, which are reportedly intended for orbiting data centers.

Additional launches have come from Chinese rocket companies that deploy satellites and provide spaceflights to the Tiangong space station and other missions; companies like the United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin, and Rocket Lab; and various European countries and Russia.

To account for pollution from both launches and reentries, Barker developed an online emissions tracker, which has shown a rapid increase in the pollution since 2020 — in particular, for the pollutants black carbon, also known as soot, as well as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Barker expects the pollutants to continue rising for years. “We’re actually slowing down the repairing of ozone hole with the space industry,” he said. “Which is quite something.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Spacecraft pollute not just on their way up, but also when they’re on their way down. All those satellites, rocket bodies, and random chunks of debris floating in orbit are mostly made of metals, and they have to go somewhere. “The biggest issue is, nobody has looked at this for quite a long time,” said Schulz, the German geophysicist, who recently published a paper about such “space waste.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Ultimately, researchers say, launch operators need to think about not only their rocket fuel, but the materials used to make their spacecraft. Because humanity depends on the ozone layer, if some of it were to disappear, the implications are clear — and different than those of climate change. “The environmental impact is an attack on the thing that makes life on Earth possible, the ozone layer,” Bannister said. “It’s very immediate.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://undark.org/2026/04/06/as-rocket-launches-increase-they-may-be-polluting-the-skies/?utm_source=Undark%3A+News+%26+Updates&utm_campaign=90003236de-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5cee408d66-185e4e09de-176033209

April 14, 2026 Posted by | space travel | Leave a comment

Mysterious Flashes in 1950s Skies Linked to Nuclear Tests and UAP Sightings: Study

Apr 10, 2026, Sci News, by Natali Anderson

A new statistical analysis of archival sky surveys from the early Cold War has found that mysterious, short-lived bursts of light in the night sky were more likely to appear around the time of above-ground nuclear weapons tests and to increase alongside reports of unexplained aerial phenomena (UAPs).

“Transient star-like objects have been identified in sky surveys conducted prior to the launch of the first artificial satellite on October 4, 1957,” said Dr. Beatriz Villarroel of the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (Nordita) and Dr. Stephen Bruehl from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

“These short-lived transients — lasting less than one exposure time of 50 min — have point spread functions and are absent in images taken shortly before the transients appear and in all images from subsequent surveys.”…………………………………….

“Above-ground nuclear weapons tests (US, Soviet, and British) were conducted on 124 days (4.6%) during the study period.”

“UAP reports were recorded in the UFOCAT database on 2,428 days during the study period (89.3%).”

The researchers found that the transients were about 45% more likely to occur on days within a one-day window of a nuclear test than on other days.

The effect was strongest the day after a test, when the likelihood of observing a transient rose by roughly 68%.

The study also reported a modest correlation between the number of transients and the number of UAP sightings recorded on the same date……………………………………………..

This study adds to the small peer-reviewed literature seeking to apply systematic scientific methods to the study of UAP-related data.”

“The ultimate importance of the associations reported in the current work for enhancing understanding of transients and UAP remains to be determined.”

A paper on the findings was published on October 20, 2025 in the journal Scientific Reports. https://www.sci.news/astronomy/cold-war-transients-14688.html

April 14, 2026 Posted by | space travel | Leave a comment

Creating bases on the Moon

April 07, 2026, Bruce Gagnon, https://space4peace.blogspot.com/2026/04/creating-bases-on-moon.html

Video on original

NASA outlines this $20 billion project to build bases on the moon. 

The speaker in the video mentions RTG’s – which are nuclear power sources for the base. The nuclear industry views space as a new market. Imagine the dirty nuclear fabrication process at DoE labs across the country and then a series of launches that could be a disaster for life on Earth if there are accidents on take off.

The US has had a plan for military base control of the moon since the 1950’s. 

The US (and some allies) are in a race to take control of the moon before China & Russia can get there. 

In this 1989 Congressional study ‘Military Space Forces’ they discuss the Earth-Moon gravity well and state that who ever covers the top of the well would be able to control access on and off the planet earth. This has relevance not only for deciding who can control the Earth below, but also who can mine the sky, etc.

Thus all of this is connected to current US mission to the moon. 

Moon has helium-3 and water which the competitors will want to control. So we now face a duplication of the current global war system on Earth moving into space.

Mars has magnesium, cobalt, uranium, etc and the nuclear-powered rovers driving around Mars are doing planetary mapping and soil ID operations.

Everyone says that a moon-based colony would be a launch pad for deeper space exploration and mining operations so again ‘control’ becomes a priority for those who have such ambitions.

I find it sad that we have competing space missions, goals, and priorities. 

I’d wish we’d go off into space when we were a more mature human race here on Earth rather than carrying the ‘bad seed of war, greed, and environmental degradation’ that we’ve sown into the depths of our Mother Earth. 

I’d rather we had a global informed debate about what kind of seed we should carry into space when we do go – and then go as united and clear thinking Earth people. Like envisioned in Star Trek.

Imagine the money for human development on Earth we’d  save if we went as one people rather than competing national blocs spending massive amounts of taxpayer funds.

This has been the work of the Global Network since our founding in 1992 – to help usher in such a needed global consciousness, debate and organizing. 

We also need a renewed effort to create international space law that bans weapons/war in space, regulates launches into the shrinking and contested parking spaces in Lower Earth Orbit (LEO), renewed treaties for the planetary bodies and determining just who can benefit from resource extraction in space. 

Let’s not create a new ‘Wild West Show’ in space.

April 11, 2026 Posted by | space travel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear fusion – triumph of hope over expectation.

 Letter Andrew Warren: The subhead for your editorial (The FT View, March
20) enthusing about the UK government’s latest £2.5bn commitment to
nuclear fusion research acknowledges it to be an “elusive power
source”. That is a decided understatement.

Back in 1967, the second
Wilson government produced an energy white paper. In it, regret was
expressed that, despite 20 years of government funding, nuclear fusion
research had yet to begin any moves towards producing any hard results.
Nonetheless confidence was expressed that a breakthrough, with important
commercial and policy implications, could be confidently anticipated by
1990.

Strangely enough, the next energy white paper (not published until
2003, by the Blair government) expressed very similar sentiments — but
with the “fulfilment date” for nuclear fusion brought forward by a
further 20-plus years. Here we are 23 years later. And now we have the
latest Labour government, announcing further billions in research funds
dished out towards delivering nuclear fusion, with results due perhaps some
time after 2040. Truly, a triumph of hope over expectation.

 FT 25th March 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/232c1ef5-9689-4911-8936-72af18e88165

April 9, 2026 Posted by | technology, UK | Leave a comment

Can Prospects for Nuclear War Get Any Worse? Sure, We Can Put AI in Charge

How quickly is the Pentagon moving toward handing the nuclear keys over to AI systems and Big Tech? No one really knows.

Tom Valovic, Apr 05, 2026, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/ai-increase-nuclear-risk

Can we possibly get away from AI’s ubiquitous presence in our lives? But as long as AI is now in our faces 24/7, it’s time to seriously start pushing back about its outsized and overwhelming influence. Troubling stories tumble out of the media daily. Employees in a major fast-food chain must now wear AI headsets that tell them how friendly they’re being to customers and coaching them on their work. (AI is now posing as our servant, but in the years ahead will the dynamic be reversed?)

And then there is the looming data center controversy, with Big Tech companies rapidly taking over huge swaths of land across the US to build massive and environmentally unfriendly data centers. Fortunately, this trend is now emerging as a campaign issue given early and cascading effects on electricity prices. In general, AI is having a tough year in the court of public opinion. Witness this cover story in a recent issue of Time magazine: “The People vs AI.” The article noted that “a growing cross section of the public—from MAGA loyalists to Democratic socialists, pastors to policymakers, nurses to filmmakers—agree on at least one thing: AI is moving too fast…. A 2025 Pew poll found… the public thinks AI will worsen our ability to think creatively, form meaningful relationships, and make difficult decisions.” Along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement-related pushback, a spontaneous wellspring of grassroots activism appears to be bubbling up against the AI juggernaut and the patently undemocratic backdoor power grab by technocrats and the companies behind them.

One of the greatest concerns in the public sphere is AI’s rapid incorporation into present and future military campaigns. This is actively being encouraged by the Trump administration’s decision to give AI companies free reign to develop their products with minimal regulation and oversight. This is an existential train wreck waiting to happen, and it came into striking focus in the monthslong dispute between AI company Anthropic and the Pentagon. Although it was already using the Claude platform, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was unhappy with the company’s refusal to use it to remove human decision-making from military operations and support accelerated mass surveillance of US citizens.

Anthropic’s move was that rarity in Big Tech circles, a strong and principled ethical stand against an administration that doesn’t seem to know what that is. Happy warrior Hegseth then branded the company as a “supply chain risk,” effectively banning further use by the Pentagon and punishing the company’s overall viability in the non-defense marketplace as well. Ever the opportunist, the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, then jumped in to offer his AI platform to do what Anthropic wouldn’t. The matter is now in the courts.

Handing AI the “Nuclear Football”

Using AI to create what are called autonomous systems represents a quantum leap in the rapidly advancing business of modern weaponry. Paradoxically, weapons technology is being simultaneously downsized through the use of drones and smaller and sophisticated high-tech devices (such as mine sniffers) and upsized with the use of the AI systems designed to manage and control them.

This raises the very troubling picture of wars being conducted without much human oversight. It’s probably one reason even high- profile AI influencers and Big Tech CEOs have admitted (sometimes a little too casually) that the technology could destroy humanity given the right set of circumstances. While autonomous systems can apply to stand-alone weapons such as killer robots, the most worrying concern relates to the Pentagon’s desire to build and deploy command-and-control systems that remove military officers from the split-second decisions that need to be made in warfare. And yes, that includes nuclear weapons.

If AI is truly as superintelligent (and sentient) as its Big Tech proponents claim it is, then these systems should also be smart enough to refuse to participate in any projects that could degrade or destroy life on the planet.

How quickly is the Pentagon moving toward handing the nuclear keys over to AI systems and Big Tech? No one really knows. When questioned by a reporter on the matter, one senior official in the Trump administration weakly demurred, “The administration supports the need to maintain human control over nuclear weapons.”

AI experts and strategic thinkers say that a big driver of this process is that America’s top nuclear adversaries—Russia and China—are already using AI in their command-and-control systems. These developments are happening at lightning speed and are being further propelled by Epic Fury, the first AI-fueled war in US history. And let’s not be too laudatory about Anthropic. Its Claude system has been integrated with Palantir’s Maven to identify military targets. The Pentagon is still investigating whether Maven played any part in the horrific event when a US Tomahawk missile struck a girls’ elementary school killing more than 165.

Sleepwalking Into Armageddon?

What madness is this? By what shallow calculus can a handful of powerful individuals or shadowy organizations decide or even risk the fate of humanity? How do we put all of this dangerous thinking at the highest levels of our government into some kind of perspective that correlates with common sense and basic human decency? In our trajectory toward what some have called techno-feudalism, we have this apparent plunge into barbarity coupled with a powerful array of tools to accelerate it. When nuclear activist Helen Caldicott warned that Western civilization is “sleepwalking into Armageddon,” it was perhaps this particular kind of blindness that she had in mind. And the brilliant socio-biologist E.O. Wilson’s profound observation also springs to mind: “The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous.”

The rush to deploy AI as large-scale weaponry with every bit as much destructive potential as our existing nuclear arsenal is a tip off to the deeper motivations behind its development. In the meantime, some obvious questions need to be asked. Why aren’t government and academic institutions eager to apply these advanced AI tools to the many intractable problems that characterize world polycrisis such as global climate change or better distribution of scarce resources including food and water? Where are the urgent calls from those who serve in Congress to do so? Or why don’t we see headlines like “Harvard Inaugurates $100 Million AI Project to Address Climate Change”?

It seems pretty clear that AI justifications coming from the both the administration and Congress (not to mention that the establishment commentariat that serves them) invariably gravitate to enhancing corporate productivity or military use. And it’s equally clear that AI will also serve as yet another powerful mechanism of wealth transfer to the 1% and either knowingly or unknowingly act as a chaos agent in an increasingly unstable multipolar geopolitical world. If AI is truly as superintelligent (and sentient) as its Big Tech proponents claim it is, then these systems should also be smart enough to refuse to participate in any projects that could degrade or destroy life on the planet. I don’t see any evidence of this. Sadly, it looks like we may have to once again learn the hard way that information, knowledge, and wisdom all are very different things. And that while knowledge can be appropriated by powerful computers, wisdom will never be.

April 8, 2026 Posted by | technology, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Data centers are creating ‘heat islands’ on land around them – warming them by up to 16 degrees, researchers warn

Researchers found that roughly 340 million people now live within 6.2 miles of a data center.
 Independent 31st March 2026

The rapid global expansion of data centers used to power artificial intelligence is creating “data heat islands” that significantly warm the surrounding environment, according to new research.

The study, led by researchers at the University of Cambridge, suggests that these vast AI data centers can increase local 

land surface temperatures by an average of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2C), with some extreme cases recording rises of up to 16.4 degrees Fahrenheit (9.1C).

This localized warming effect is estimated to affect more than 340 million people worldwide.

As the tech industry races to build “hyperscale” facilities — some spanning over a million square feet — to meet the computing demands of AI, researchers are warning of a lack of oversight regarding their environmental footprint.

There are still big gaps in our understanding of the impacts of data centers, even as they boom in number, Andrea Marinoni, associate professor at the University of Cambridge and an author of the study, told CNN.

Unlike previous research focused on carbon emissions or water usage, the study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, examined the physical heat released by 

server cooling systems and computation.

Researchers analyzed 20 years of satellite data from NASA sensors, mapping it against more than 6,000 data centers located away from dense urban areas to isolate the facilities’ effect from other factors such as residential heating or heavy manufacturing.

They found that the warming effect is not confined to the immediate vicinity of the buildings. Significant temperature increases were detected up to 6.2 miles away from the sites. The scale of this warming is similar to the “urban heat island” effect seen in large cities.

The study identified consistent warming trends across the globe, including in Spain’s Aragón province, where a surge of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2C) stood out as an anomaly compared to neighboring regions.

A similar effect was seen in Mexico’s Bajío region, which has experienced unexplained temperature increases of approximately 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2C) over the last two decades as data center construction intensified.

In Brazil, researchers recorded even higher surface temperature rises of 5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8C) across the states of Ceará and Piauí. The warming, centered around dedicated AI service centers in Teresina, was noted as particularly unusual for the region’s climate.

The findings come at a time when data centers are projected to become one of the most power-hungry sectors of the global economy. Within five years, the study warns, the electricity needed for data processing will likely “exceed the amount budgeted for manufacturing” worldwide.

Deborah Andrews, emeritus professor of design for sustainability at London South Bank University, told CNN that while concerns over data centers are growing, this research is the first to focus specifically on produced heat.

“The ‘rush for AI-gold’ appears to be overriding good practice and systemic thinking,” she said, “and is developing far more rapidly than any broader, more sustainable systems.”……………………………………………… https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/ai-data-center-heat-islands-usage-climate-b2949418.html

April 8, 2026 Posted by | technology | Leave a comment

Bypass the Strait of Hormuz with nuclear explosives? The US studied that in Panama and Colombia in the 1960s

The Conversation, Christine Keiner, Chair of the Department of Science, Technology, and Society, Rochester Institute of Technology, April 2, 2026

With the world struggling to get oil supplies moving from the Middle East, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich raised eyebrows with a social media post highlighting a radical idea: Use nuclear bombs to cut a new channel along a route that would avoid Iranian threats in the Strait of Hormuz.

Gingrich’s March 15, 2026, post linked to an article that labeled itself as satire. Gingrich has not clarified whether his endorsement was serious. But he is old enough to remember when ideas like this were not only taken seriously but actually pursued by the U.S. and Soviet governments.

As I discuss in my book, “Deep Cut: Science, Power, and the Unbuilt Interoceanic Canal,” the U.S. version of this project ended in 1977. At the time, Gingrich was launching his political career after working as a history and environmental studies professor.

Improving global trade and geopolitical influence

The idea for a new canal to move oil from the Middle East had emerged two decades earlier, in the context of another Middle East conflict, the Suez crisis. In 1956, Egypt seized the Suez Canal from British and French control. The canal’s prolonged closure caused the price of oil, tea and other commodities to spike for European consumers, who depended on the shipping shortcut for goods from Asia.

But what if nuclear energy could be harnessed to cut an alternative canal through “friendly territory”? That was the question asked by Edward Teller, the principal architect of the hydrogen bomb, and his fellow physicists at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Livermore, California.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration had already begun promoting atomic energy to generate electricity and to power submarines. After the Suez crisis, the U.S. government expanded plans to harness “atoms for peace.”

Project Plowshare advocates, led by Teller, sought to use what they called “peaceful nuclear explosions” to reduce the costs of large-scale earthmoving projects and to promote national security. They envisioned a world in which nuclear explosives could help extract natural gas from underground reservoirs and build new canals, harbors and mountainside roads, with minimal radioactive effects.

To kick-start the program, Teller wanted to create an instant harbor by burying, and then detonating, five thermonuclear bombs in an Indigenous village in coastal northwestern Alaska. The plan, known as Project Chariot, generated intense debate, as well as a pioneering environmental study of Arctic food webs……………………………………………………………………….

Nuclear explosions appeared to make a new sea-level canal financially feasible. The greatest impetus for the so-called Panatomic Canal occurred in January 1964, when violent anti-U.S. protests erupted in Panama. President Lyndon B. Johnson responded to the crisis by agreeing to negotiate new political agreements with Panama.

Johnson appointed the Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission to determine the best site to use nuclear explosions to blast a seaway between the two oceans. Funded by a $17.5 million congressional appropriation – the equivalent of around $185 million today – the five civilian commissioners focused on two routes: one in eastern Panama and the other in western Colombia………………………………………………………………..

To avoid the radioactivity and ground shocks, planners estimated that approximately 30,000 people, half of them Indigenous, would have to be evacuated and resettled. The canal commission considered this a formidable but not impossible obstacle, writing in its final report, “The problems of public acceptance of nuclear canal excavation probably could be solved through diplomacy, public education, and compensating payments.”

A not-so-hot idea, in retrospect

As explored in my book, marine and evolutionary biologists of the late 1960s sought to study the project’s less obvious environmental effects. Among other potential catastrophes, scientists warned that a sea-level canal could unleash “mutual invasions of Atlantic and Pacific organisms” by joining the oceans on either side of the isthmus for the first time in 3 million years.

Plans for the nuclear waterway ended by the early 1970s, not over concerns about marine invasive species but rather due to other complex issues. These included the difficulties of testing nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes without violating the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 and the huge budget deficits caused by the Vietnam War……………………………………………………….

Today, given widespread awareness of the severe environmental and health effects of radioactive fallout, it is hard to envision a time when using nuclear bombs to build canals seemed reasonable. Even before Gingrich’s post sparked ridicule, press accounts described Project Plowshare using words like “wacky,” “insane” and “crazy.”

However, as societies struggle with disruptive new technologies such as generative AI and cryptocurrency, it is worth remembering that many ideas that ended up discredited once seemed not only sensible but inevitable.

As historians of science and technology point out, technological and scientific developments cannot be separated from their cultural contexts. Moreover, the technologies that become part of people’s daily lives often do so not because they are inherently superior, but because powerful interests champion them.

It makes me wonder: Which of the high-tech trends being promoted by influencers today will amuse, shock and horrify our descendants? https://theconversation.com/bypass-the-strait-of-hormuz-with-nuclear-explosives-the-us-studied-that-in-panama-and-colombia-in-the-1960s-278851

April 7, 2026 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, technology | Leave a comment

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